Incidentally, his ideas of watering come from when he was a kid and his neighbor paid him to water her flowers. Apparently she had him water every day, sometimes twice a day. Not sure for how long, but I'm pretty sure this isn't what you would do with a vegetable garden. At least not from anything I've read.

I go by how the plants and soil look. It averages to about once every 3 days for most of my plants (unless we have a good rain, then that counts for one of the waterings). I've never heard of any inch per week rule.

The squash plants are my sensors. They wilt very quickly here, so I water them more often. Normally, every other squash watering means it's time to water the other plants too.

The only way to truly know if your garden needs watering is to check the soil. If it's moist beneath the surface then there's no need to water. If it's dry, then water it. The 1 inch per week rule is a very vague rule (I believe it's actually meant for lawns) and really shouldn't be used. Everybody's soil is different and it dries out at different rates.

Also, when you do water make sure it is a very deep soaking rather than a shallow one.

Rodney

I agree completely about the squash as sensors. They're the sensitive ones. When they wilt, I water them. Every other time, I water everything else.

But in general, when things wilt a little, put on water. They won't mind being thirsty briefly. The squash perk back up in an hour or two. You'll develop a keen eye for when things look like they're drooping a bit.

The inches/week also depends enormously on sunlight, temperature, and humidity. If I did one inch/week in a central Texas summer, everything would be dead.

DO NOT keep the top of the soil moist. That's fungus heaven.

Well unfortunately I don't have any squash right now lol. I did decide to mist all the seedlings that have sprouted (lettuce, kohlrabi, a few herbs and flowers) since it hit almost 90 today. But tonight it's supposed to start raining for several days straight so I'm hoping they all do ok.